Anthony Hopkins
Anthony Hopkins
Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE, is a Welsh actor of film, stage, and television. After graduating from the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama in 1957, he trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London, and was then spotted by Laurence Olivier who invited him to join the Royal National Theatre. In 1968, he got his break in film in The Lion in Winter, playing King Richard the Lionheart...
NationalityWelsh
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth31 December 1937
CityMargam, Wales
I was hell bent on destruction... it was like being possessed by a demon.
Once you begin to fall off the track and believe you breathe different air to everyone else, you're doomed; you're finished.
Multiply it by infinity and take it to the depths of forever, and you will still have barely a glimpse of what I'm talking about.
It's such a pleasant surprise when you come on set and you find someone in charge like Ken Branagh or James Ivory. You know that you're going to do a day's work and at the end of it, it's going to be good.
If I spent all my time criticising myself, I wouldn't be able to function. There are actors who theorise till the cows come home. I haven't the patience for them. It's maybe shallow, but that's why I'll never be part of the acting set.
I couldn't say I ever dreamt of becoming a composer, a pianist, or anything else for that matter. I have the kind of brain where nothing is set in stone.
I can't stand directors who try to micro-manage everything. When it happens these days I just walk off set, saying if they don't like the way I'm doing it they can get someone else.
I always had a knack for improvisation. I can write down the notes I play, but never really had a proper academic musical background. I suppose I'm blessed and cursed by the fact I have that freedom.
For me, time is the greatest mystery of all. The fact is that we're dreaming all the time. That's what really gets me. We have a fathomless lake of unconsciousness just beneath our skulls.
Actors I admire? Ed Harris, or course, I think he's terrific; because I know he always had to fight being what he looked like a lot, but I think he's a terrific actor.
Acting is just a process of relaxation, actually. Knowing the text so well and trusting that the instinct and the subconscious mind, whatever you want to call it, is going to take over.
My weak spot is laziness. Oh, I have a lot of weak spots: cookies, croissants.
In the theatre, people talk. Talk, talk until the cows come home about journeys of discovery and about what Hazlitt thought of a line of Shakespeare. I can't stand it.
What I do is just go over and over and over my lines and learn the script so well that I can just be easy and relaxed. That's the way I always work.